Best Companies to Work For 2011 FAQ

We’ve created this page to give you more detailed information about the 2011 Best Companies program. We’ve highlighted the five major steps of the process below.

Nomination. Anyone can nominate any company, so long as it is in Washington state. It can be the company you work for or someone else’s, a for-profit company, not-for-profit organization or government agency, a homegrown establishment or a subsidiary of an out-of-state or international concern. There is one key issue: The name and contact information of a human resources officer at that company must be provided. This will be the person we contact to continue the process. There is no fee to nominate a company. We will accept nominations until Jan. 17.

Profile. The HR professional named in the nomination is invited to fill out out a corporate survey on our website. This profile goes into detail about employee benefits, training, management and other factors that will be considered as part of the judging process. There is no fee to take part in the profile. The deadline to submit a completed profile is Jan. 31.

Employee
Survey and Calculation. Our partner, Gilmore Research Group, conducts a
comprehensive survey of the company employees with questions about your
company’s culture, benefits, leadership, communications and other
important attributes. Employees take the survey anonymously online, and while much of the survey is designed to generate a numeric score, there is an opportunity for employees to comment as well. Individually identifying information is not disclosed to anyone. Gilmore Research Groups will generate a score based on the employee responses, and will for a fee provide a detailed analysis. Many companies that have entered the Best Companies program in the past do so to get the report, which they use as a recruiting tool. All companies entering the competition will be considered on their merits only, whether or not they purchase the report.

Judging. A panel of human resource professionals and
workplace experts will review the data of the top scoring companies determine the final ranking. Judges consider raw scores, the corporate profiles, the employee comments and their common sense, and will award additional points they believe are deserved. The judges determine the winners and runners-up.

Celebration. Everyone comes to our
awards banquet, where dinner is served, drinks poured, winners are
announced, and a good time is had by all! The date and location of the banquet, ticket pricing and other information will be announced at a later date. The winners and runners-up will be announced at the banquet, and banquet attendees get an advance copy of the July issue of Seattle Business that contains the list of all 100 top companies.

If you have any further questions, contact our marketing director, Chris Deco, at 206.452.2970 or send him an e-mail.

Click here to go back to the Best Companies home page.